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Velina Tchakarova, geopolitical strategist and founder of FACE, joins “Making Money” to discuss the escalating protests in Iran, the strategic importance of Greenland and winning the race to AI.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth announced a plan Monday to make the United States a global leader in artificial intelligencedrones and space technology, arguing that a culture of risk aversion has slowed innovation and prevented the Pentagon from providing the best resources to its military.
Hegseth was speaking alongside SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at the company’s Brownsville, Texas, headquarters, where he unveiled a strategy to advance Pentagon technology.
“Today is about driving innovation at the War Department for the era to come,” Hegseth said in his speech. “Innovation is happening at a pace we can’t even predict, and we need the entire enterprise, our enterprise, to embrace the urgency required by the moment. Since the end of the Cold War, our nation’s defense industrial base has been consolidated. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for new creators of technical innovations to win business in our department.”
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth spoke alongside SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at the company’s headquarters in Brownsville, Texas. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
“The result is a culture of risk aversion that prevents us from providing our warfighters with the best resources America has to offer,” he continued. “It ends today. Simply put, the United States must win the strategic competition for 21st century technological supremacy, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, quantum hypersonics and long-range drones. If you talk to Elon Musk long enough, he will tell you how important hypersonics and long-range drones are. And he is 100% right. Space capabilities, directed energy and biotechnology are the new areas of global competition.
Hegseth announced an “AI acceleration strategy” that he said will extend the U.S. lead in military AI established under the presidency. that of Donald Trump first administration.
“This strategy will unlock experimentation, remove bureaucratic barriers, focus on investment and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI and become more dominant in the future,” he said. “In short, we will win this race by becoming an AI-driven fighting force in everything from the back offices of the Pentagon to the tactical advantage on the front lines.”
Pentagon chief Hegseth announced an “AI acceleration strategy” that he said will extend the U.S. lead in military AI established during the first Trump administration. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
The Secretary added that “the catalyst for this acceleration will be seven innovative projects focused on mission streams across warfighting, intelligence and enterprise missions, each with a single, accountable leader, tight deadlines and measurable results.”
He also said the consolidation of the U.S. defense industrial base, which he said “has created a closed innovation ecosystem dominated by only a handful of prime contractors,” will end as part of efforts to boost tech startups.
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Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth announced a plan to make the United States a world leader in AI, drones and space technology. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
“Today this old era is coming to an end,” he said. “THE War Department opens up to the disruptive energy and agile creativity of our country’s technology startups, funded by our world’s leading capital markets.
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“For too long we have organized our ecosystem around siled scenes, labs here, so-called rapid units there, trade outreach in another building or on another coast, and fighters somewhere at the end, almost as an afterthought. The result is duplication, drift, and confusion,” Hegseth continued.
